A core issue is people tend to place no value on “free”.
What is the minimum fee that can be charged using the current calendar system and where do those monies go? The committee?
I’m not sure that there’s a set minimum. Woodshop charges $5 to firm up people’s resolve. Those fees do go to the committee.
Agreed but as the mission of DMS (as it was told to me) is to provide free classes as much as possible this seems counter productive. I’ve also seen several occasions where mention of charging fees for that purpose was met with quite a lot of venom towards the instructors with accusations being thrown about. If they no show with a fee the student us out $5 but the instructor isn’t whole unless they plan to make a $25 fee
I will say again, if classes cost $5, fewer people will be registering for them and where will you be?
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Well she would only have people signing up that knew they could show up, were actually interested, and valued her time. So she would either know in advance that her class wouldn’t make honorarium and could alert the other member or two left, or she could drum up interest in the class.
This is not a key part of our mission. The DMS should understand that people value their time.
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You totally missed my point.
Many people do not have spare Lincolns burning a hole in the pocket. If many classes cost $5, many will not be taking them, period.
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No I got the point. But we can’t cater to the people who can’t afford $5 at the expense of the teachers losing money.
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I hate that some people might not attend a class due to a minimum fee to discourage no-shows but it appears that will have to happen. The classes are still a bargain and I’m happy to pay to attend.
Except if a student doesn’t come the teacher still lost money and the student feels their behavior was acceptable because they paid five dollars for the privilege to be a jerk. Short of charging $25 per student (which is exorbitant) through eventbrite the teacher still lost. If the instructor shows and conducts a class for something that had an acceptable registration level before it started they should be paid. End of story. The teacher fulfilled their contract. If this issue was happening to me alone I’d blame it on my teaching but it’s not isolated to my instruction. I shouldn’t have to choose between getting hung out to dry and getting side eye for unnecessary fees.
Knowing if a class makes or not is equally irrelevant since it was made clear cancellations on behalf of the instructor for that reason are considered unexcellent and disrespectful to the one or two that did register.
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I didn t realize that having a hefty bank account was necessart to be
a member, what a shame, I think us poor folks add a lot
to the space
If you take one class a month it isn t a problem but what if you
take 4 or more? Some folks are retied and live on a limited
income, some are students with huge student loans, some have families
I will continue to teach, if the class makes great, if it doesn t that fine as well
I teach because I enjoy sharing my skills and because that is pat of the goals o DMS
Th honoraiums help me pay my dues, and they can help me take some paid classes
You won t find me in many
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Ok, I’m going to get some pushback and probably kick myself. What if we make the basic fee for a class $25 and if you show you would get a portion or all of it back.
Could have unintended consequences such as the instructor forgetting to mark attendance etc.
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Do you really want to handle all of the paperwork (and potential fees) for charging, then refunding for every student in every class? I would suggest that if we implement something like this, we charge only when the person fails to show for the class.
If we are going to ‘punish’ people for failing to attend, then we ought to start punishing instructors for failing to perform their job (mark attendance) as well. Say. $5 for each student they fail to mark as attending.
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I knew I would regret saying it for this reason. It would have to be automated but even then probably not feasible depending on our user agreement with Braintree. Too many refunds may get us into trouble.
It is a two part problem: 1) students no-show 2) instructors not marking attendance. Which effects lower payouts of honorariums as well as the hassle for honorarium auditors and finance.
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Does Braintree accept coupon codes?
Also the data Alex pulled…is it sortable to show by unique user (teacher) to do a countif statement for their number of classes taught in a given period?
I’m trying to come up with a solution and am hitting a wall on the logistic of a plan.
What about a token system. You buy tokens to be able register for a class (can’t register if you don’t have a token) if you attend the class the token is released, otherwise you forfeit the token. All class fees would be charged separately.
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Alex only gave a very high level explanation and didn’t actually share the data with the group. He also only pulled a 1 month period, so the sample size is very small. Can some share what information we are actually gathering in the class system. Once we know what is being gathered, we can hypothesize and ask to run tests against the data.
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Or you earn tokens with your monthly dues …
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The day we start doing this is the day I stop teaching classes.
I am teaching enough now that this is not an idle threat. I am saddened to see the tone become so punitive.
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Some of the classes Alex listed revealed systematic problems with the calendar system and involving one of our most reliable instructors. Which means that we should be reviewing the honorarium list regularly.
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So am I, but the truth is that if we are planning on penalizing a student failing to show up, we ought to penalize instructors who don’t follow through as well.
Or we could just accept that people aren’t perfect and leave the current working system alone.
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